Tag: space

PREY – This Article Is A Mimic:

Posted on by in Gaming

In the eternal time-vortex that is the COVID-19 lockdown and pandemic, I realised that I had never finished my playthrough of the game PREY. Considering I’d had a tonne of ideas for articles about the spooky space adventure, I decided it was time to remedy that. However, when loading up my save, I realised that I had left my Morgan Yu in a corridor with a Nightmare and no real way out. So, like any normal person, I decided to watch an in-depth lets-play and scream quietly into my pillow at every jumpscare. I’ll go back and officially finish the game myself one day, maybe as a Halloween stream if that is something that you’d be interested in.

One of the main features of PREY is the enemy type called the Mimic. As its name suggests, it mimics objects in its surroundings and blends in, until you get too close, at which point it tries to eat your face. Personally, my coffee cup becoming sentient and trying to consume the flesh from my bones is on my list of “Things I Never Want to Happen to Me Ever on The Face of The Planet”. Then again, that list isn’t particularly long (yet). Mimic’s can take on the form of nearly any object, forcing you to constantly scan your surroundings for anything that is out of place. That additional coffee cup? Mimic. That oddly angled chair? Mimic. That person trying to kill you? Not a mimic, just a jerk.

…I love my coffee but am not a fan of getting my face consumed.

You are Morgan Yu, a tester of devices known as “Neuromods”, which allow the user to gain new abilities and skills instantly, though it does involve inserting a needle into your eye which is scarier than most of the game’s monsters.  These abilities fall under two categories – Human, such as improved medicine, attack power and hacking ability, or Alien – which gives you access to the Typhon’s abilities like telekinesis, morphing and telepathy. This wide skillset allows the player to choose how they wish to approach each scenario they face, be it with stealth or an overpowered shotgun. My default approach is to try and be as stealthy as possible, then get discovered and panic until the enemies are all dead or I am dead.

Despite the outer-space surroundings and endless swarm of jerks, mimics, and phantoms, it is the atmosphere that makes PREY such a fascinating game. From the moment you start it up, you are consistently shown not to believe your eyes. Your apartment is a simulated environment, that you have been living in for three years, following the same daily routine (a la Groundhog Day). Three years of your memories have been wiped out from the use of Neuromods, and the entirety of Talos One has been overrun with the Typhoon menace. Every shadow seems to contain another monstrosity and you can’t trust what you see or hear.

You’ve heard of tall, dark and handsome. Welcome to massive, horrifying and demonic.

This look into what it’s like to not trust your own senses, gives us all a slightly glimpse into what people with Psychosis deal with every single day. Every individual’s experience with the mental illness is different but there are three main symptoms associated with a psychotic episode:

  1. Hallucinations
  2. Delusions
  3. Confused and Disturbed Thoughts

The mimic’s ability to imitate the world around you, forces you to distrust everyone and everything in sight. Your senses are heightened, every shadow is an enemy lying in wait and every unexplored corridor seems too dangerous to risk exploring. You are surrounded by death and chaos, followed by long stretches of eerie silence where every clang of metal or hiss of air causes you to jump ten feet in the air out of panic. It’s a remarkable combination of panic, distrust, and paranoia, lumped in with a healthy dose of genuine fear.

Nope, nope, nope, nope nope, nope nope NOPE

When the Nightmare shows up for the first time after entering the Arboretum, you catch a glimpse of your greatest threat yet. Sure, the mimics and phantoms all want to kill you, but their existence doesn’t revolve around it. The Nightmare, however, only has one sole purpose in life – to hunt you down and tear you limb from limb. It really should get a better hobby, I’m just saying. Try fishing or something.

These things are fast, strong, and capable of swiping your head off with one hit. No matter how powered up you are, these things are more than able to take you out. Those Neuromods I mentioned earlier? Yeah, the more of the “Alien” ones that you use, the more the Nightmare will show up. It’s not worth fighting these guys. It’s a waste of ammo for a one-time reward, with a high mortality rate.

GET BACK SATAN

Encountering your first nightmare, you’d probably assume that it’s just a set-piece and that the abomination will probably turn up as a boss fight near the end of the game. A logical assumption but an incorrect one. These things will stalk you across Talos One, destroying everything and everyone that is in their way. To quote the in-game description – “If all else fails, run.”

Another aspect of PREY that I absolutely MUST mention, is it’s ending. The grand finale of the game has you facing down an enormous Typhon called an Apex, which is threatening to consume the entirety of Talos One. You have the choice of trying to escape, neutralising the Typhon, or setting off the station’s self-destruct sequence and sacrificing yourself. Your actions earlier on in the game, will dictate whether you survive your stay on Talos One.

…Please don’t eat me

Throughout the game, when you encounter other humans, you don’t have to kill them. You are provided with plenty of non-lethal options to deal with your non-supernatural foes. After all, everyone on Talos One is also fighting back against the Typhons. They just don’t want their coffee cup to eat them, is that too much to ask? Each person you spare or kill, whether you choose to free or rescue those in danger, as well as the ending you choose – will be laid out in front of you in a post-credit scene.

The whole game was an experiment. Morgan Yu, your player character, is a captured Typhon entity with Morgan’s memories implanted into it. Every part of the storyline that you played through, was a memory and a test to see whether Typhon’s were capable of developing empathy and human emotions. Dependent on your choices throughout the game, the experiment is either deemed a success or a failure. If you fail, then you die.

Is anyone else getting a James Bond villain from Alex?

However, if you succeed, then Alex (Morgan’s brother) reveals something to you. The Typhons have already invaded Earth. The efforts you went through to contain the Typhon threat, were for nothing. However, by showing that you as a Typhon can develop empathy and emotions, proves that peace could be brokered between the remaining members of humanity and the invading Typhons. It is up to you to choose whether you want to be that bridge between the groups as a hybrid of the two.

We all know that I love games that have consequences for your actions. It forces you to care a bit more about the world you are exploring and the character’s you interact with. That fear and paranoia that you experience throughout the game becomes tenfold when you realise that your anxious trigger finger could be the end of a genuinely good person’s life.

Anyways, apologies that this article took so bloody long! I made it a bit longer to make up for the delay, so hopefully it was all that you were hoping for. If you have other games that you’d like to see my take on (eventually), leave them in the comments or message me on Twitter (@OurMindGames).

CaitlinRC.

Broken Age – Cuddle Dungeons of Doom:

Posted on by in Gaming

In storytelling, there is rarely such a thing as a coincidence. Every background detail and line of dialogue has been put there for a reason. My tabletop roleplaying group have caught onto this concept quickly. If I mention a seemingly insignificant character or detail about the weather, for example, my players will aggressively theorise until the cows come home. It does make it quite hard to hook them in for a storyline, I must admit. This detail-oriented approach can really lend itself to powerful storytelling in video games, especially of more story driven games like the topic of this week’s article – Broken Age.

Broken Age has two main characters – a young woman named Vella and a young man named Shay. As the sun and moon motifs from the game’s opening indicate, the worlds that Shay and Vella occupy are complete opposites. Although, as we find out at the end of Broken Age’s first act, they are in fact, related, much like the floating space rock and ball of gas that we see in the sky each day. However, what these two have in common is a desire to break free from their lives, from the traditions and ideals that they are expected to maintain. Which is something I think a lot of us can relate to in an ever-changing world.

Dammit, now I want cake.

Shay is an outer space explorer, living a mind-numbing routine, accompanied by his “parents” – a pair of Artificial Intelligence programs that are tasked with keeping him safe. This “safe” lifestyle has become restrictive and suffocating to Shay, leading to him searching for a change. Shay wants to break free. Meanwhile Vella, has been chosen to represent her village in a ceremony called “The Maiden’s Feast”. The feast in question is for a horrific creature called Mog Chothra, who chooses some of the women to be his sacrifices. This feast is treated as a celebration by the villages, rather than you know, a barbaric waste of human life. Vella wants to fight back.

As a point and click game, Broken Age focuses more on dialogue and puzzle solving, rather than any intense combat features or stealth mechanics. Want to avoid being eaten by Mog Chothra? Convince a nearby bird to give you a lift by using a corset as a makeshift saddle (obviously). Need to rescue some helpless yarn creatures from an avalanche? Eat the avalanche with your spoon because it is made of ice cream (why?). Some of the puzzles can be a bit complex to wrap your head around, especially when people in Meriloft KEEP TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING LIGHT INSTEAD OF HELPING YOU OUT.

I wish my missions in life were this easy.

Taking a page out of the theatre approach to storytelling, Broken Age is broken (cue evil laugh) into two acts. The first act introduces you to Shay and Vella in their own worlds and you get to see them react to surroundings they are comfortable in, as well as newer situations. You get a glimpse of how they react in times of trouble, their morals, and their ingenuity. You’d think there wouldn’t be many places that Broken Age could go to when it comes to storytelling, considering one of it’s two protagonists is in outer space but it throws you a curveball at the end of Act One.

Spoiler Alert:

It is revealed that Shay was never in space at all. He was inside Mog Chothra, a mechanical monster that is a part of something called “Project Dandelion”. In her attempts to take down the beast, Vella awakens Alex, a previous pilot of an ancient spaceship called the Malrouna, who helps her rig a laser trap for the beast. The trap works, bringing Mog Chothra down and allowing Shay to crawl out. Vella and Shay briefly see one another, before Vella falls into Mog Chothra and Shay becomes trapped on the outside. The two switch worlds and the player realise that these two stories are more deeply connected than they first appeared. Shay, for example, had a series of “secret rescue missions” that had him saving various critters using his ship’s mechanical arm. This little minigame directly mirrors the Maiden’s Feasts in Vella’s story, where the maidens are plucked from their podiums by a large arm. Suspicious.

You’ve heard of the big bad wolf right?

It is during Act Two that Broken Age takes a step from the mildly sinister undertones of it is opening act, to a much darker tale. You do not expect point and click adventure games to undertake such drastic tonal changes, but Broken Age achieves this, dragging you along for the ride. Marek, a stowaway on Shay’s ship from Act One, reveals the true purpose of Operation Dandelion. It is not to find a new home planet for Shay, who is supposedly the last of his species.

The Thrush, a species that Marek (whose true name is Marekai) is a member of, believe that the rest of the planet is infected with a horrible disease. So, they trapped a subsection of humans and governed over them, using the Maiden’s Feasts as a method of removing inferior genes from the population. Vella escaping Mog Chothra on two separate occasions, was not a coincidence. Her genetic makeup is deemed “superior” and the Thrush are planning on killing her and merging their DNA with hers, to “perfect” their bloodline and assume total dominion over the planet.

This guy looks far too like Cthulhu for my comfort.

Naturally, the game has a standard happy ending with Shay and Vella finally meeting face to face and peaceful alliances being drawn between the citizens behind the Plague Dam and those beyond it. However, what really intrigued me about this game was the connections between Vella and Shay. At first glance, they seem like utter strangers to one another. Different worlds, different situations, different people surrounding them. You do not expect to find those common threads between them, yet they are there. A bit like real life.

Something that I have discovered over my years of battling my mental health issues, is that although nobody’s journey is the same, there are some defining events and attitudes that tie us all together. Whether it is coping with sensory overload or struggling to discern hallucination from reality, mental health conditions are something that we each must live with, every second of every day. That constant battle, that constant war within yourself is a part of what makes us who we are. Why we fight for justice, why we speak up when we see wrong in the world. We stand up because if we do not, nobody will.

See you soon,

CaitlinRC

Super Mario Galaxy – The Best Mario Game Come at Me:

Posted on by in Gaming

As someone with a girlfriend, if my girlfriend was constantly carried off by a giant turtle and she did not get a restraining order taken out on that dude, then our relationship would be over faster than a Tik Tok. (Side note cannot believe I just wrote that sentence, I feel so old). So, I feel like Mario really needs to either find a new relationship or invest in some private security because come on dude, some of these kidnappings could have been easily prevented.

As baffling as the plot of the Mario games are (if it can even be called a plot), he is a beloved franchise and is 99% of the world’s first guess when asked about video games mascots. As much as I enjoy platformers, personally I never really got into the Mario games as a kid. I think my main bulk of play time in the plumber’s world was in the multiplayer minigames in the Mario Bros game for the DS, mostly because it was the one game that myself, my cousins and my sister all knew how to play.

Who knew I needed to race penguins?

We have talked about Mario Odyssey on the site before but other than that, I have not seen the need to talk about the many other instalments in the seemingly endless franchise. I do not need typing lessons or to have pills prescribed to me by someone who did not go to medical school. However, there is one set of Mario games that I have a soft spot for – the Mario Galaxy games. Released for the Nintendo Wii, these games formed a large part of my childhood and were the first games that my sister would play with me.

As much as I adore my sister, video games are not her forte. Case in point, I let her have a go playing some Spiderman a few months back and her main achievement was to jump up and down the street like a weirdly dressed frog. It was mostly to piss me off but still, the point stands. So, the multiplayer aspects of the Mario Galaxy game (although limited) were perfect for us to play together, without resorting to murdering one another.

So…. you like jazz?

Taking any series and sending it into space, can make or break the franchise. Just look at the Friday the 13th series! Why on earth would you send Jason into space? If humanity had mastered inter-space travel, you think they would be able to put down one dude with a murder fetish. Thankfully, Mario in space was worth the pocket money that I spent on it. Though if my wrists start cracking by the time, I turn 30, then maybe I played too much of it. The introduction of motion controls into modern gaming must have really boosted physiotherapists businesses.

After playing Odyssey, it really feels like Galaxy was the blueprint that they based their most successful game off. Exploring different worlds with unique themes, collecting stars/moons for completing odd tasks, trying out new powers (be that through possession or consumption of odd mushrooms), even improving your ship as your adventure progresses. Even the concept of a world changing after you beat it for the first time was seen in the various comet types in Galaxy, only to become entirely new sections in Odyssey. Thankfully, the cosmic clones have stayed in the TRASH WHERE THEY BELONG.

THESE FREAKING CLONES. I SWEAR TO GOD.

More than anything, the Galaxy games were a kind of escape. I got to explore new places, try new things, and just revel in the excitement that those goofy minigames brought me. The age that I played those games, were when my battles with self-esteem and anxiety began. To have something that I could escape into and that my big sister could enjoy with me, was a support system that I did not know that I needed.

Anyways, I will go back to writing my dissertation project now.

CaitlinRC